Hong Kong Exhibition 香港展覽09.02.2018–06.05.2018M+ Pavilion M+展亭

Samson Young: Songs for Disaster Relief World Tour is the Hong Kong edition of the exhibition Songs for Disaster Relief conceived by multidisciplinary artist Samson Young for the 57th International Art Exhibition in Venice Biennale 2017.

Hong Kong Exhibition 香港展覽09.02.2018–06.05.2018M+ Pavilion M+展亭

Samson Young: Songs for Disaster Relief World Tour is the Hong Kong edition of the exhibition Songs for Disaster Relief conceived by multidisciplinary artist Samson Young for the 57th International Art Exhibition in Venice Biennale 2017.

Artist

Samson Young

Samson Young (Hong Kong, born 1979) is an artist and composer based in Hong Kong. Young’ diverse practice draws from the avant-garde compositional traditions of aleatoric music, musique concrète, and graphic notation. Behind each project is an extensive
process of research, involving a mapping of the process through a series of ‘sound sketches’ and audio recordings. His drawing, radio broadcast, performance and composition touch upon the recurring topics of conflict, war, and political frontiers.
Young was the inaugural winner of the BMW Art Journey Award at the Art Basel Hong Kong 2015. His recent solo projects include Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan (2015); Team Gallery, New York (2015); Para Site, Hong Kong (2016);
Experimenter, India (2016); and Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany (2016).

As a practising musician, Young is the member of multiple bands and has collaborated with ensembles and orchestras worldwide. He has participated in international music and performing art festivals including Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik,
Darmstadt; Fusebox Festival, Austin; New York Electronic Art Festival, New York; Tonlagen Festival, Dresden; Transart Festival, Bolzano; and MONA FOMA Festival of Music and Art.

Curators

Guest Curator: Ying Kwok

Ying Kwok is an independent curator who is noted for her inventive curatorial approach, often centered on ‘boundaries of collaboration’ between curators, artists, and the wider community. She is the curator of the Chinese Arts Centre in Manchester
in the UK between 2006 and 2012. Since 2013, Kwok became an independent curator working internationally. She co-curated Harmonious Society, as part of Asia Triennial Manchester 2014, From longing to belonging with Laznia Centre for Contemporary
Art in Poland in 2014 and 2016; and recently No cause for alarm at La MaMa Galleria in New York 2016. In 2015, Kwok was awarded the Asia Cultural Council Fellowship to carry out a five-month- long research on participatory and engagement projects
in the US. To encourage critical thinking and initiating effective discussions in Hong Kong, Kwok founded the Art Appraisal Club with a group of local art professionals in 2014. They first launch their biannual and bilingual journal Art Review
Hong Kong in 2016. Apart from that, the group also provides regular exhibition reviews which are published in magazines and various cultural networks.

Consulting Curator: Doryun Chong

Doryun Chong is the Deputy Director and Chief Curator at M+, a museum of visual culture in Hong Kong. Chong oversees all aspects of curatorial activities of M+, including collection, exhibitions and symposiums, as well as learning and interpretation.
Prior to joining M+, he held curatorial positions at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York from 2009 to 2013; the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis from 2003 and 2009; and at the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco. He served as the coordinator
for the Korean Pavilion exhibition at the 2001 Venice Biennale and co-curated Tsang Kin-wah: The Infinite Nothing, Hong Kong’s participation in the 56th Venice Biennale.

Co‑Presenters

M+

Hong Kong’s museum for visual culture – encompassing 20th and 21st century art, design, and architecture, and moving image from Hong Kong, China, Asia, and beyond – M+ will be one of the largest museums of modern and contemporary visual culture
in the world. Located adjacent to the Art Park on the waterfront, the museum building, designed by Herzog & de Meuron, is scheduled to open in 2019. To find out more about M+, please visit www.westkowloon.hk/mplus.

West Kowloon Cultural District

Located on Hong Kong’s Victoria Harbour, the West Kowloon Cultural District is one of the largest cultural projects in the world. Its vision is to create a vibrant new cultural quarter for Hong Kong. With a complex of theatres, performance spaces,
and M+, the West Kowloon Cultural District will produce and host world-class exhibitions, performances, and cultural events, as well as provide 23 hectares of public open space, including a two kilometre waterfront promenade. To find out more
about West Kowloon Cultural District, please visit www.westkowloon.hk.

Hong Kong Arts Development Council

Established in 1995, the Hong Kong Arts Development Council (HKADC) is a statutory body set up by the Government to support the broad development of the arts in Hong Kong. The major roles of HKADC are to fund, promote and support the broad development
of the arts including literary arts, performing arts, visual arts as well as film and media arts in Hong Kong. Aiming to foster a thriving arts environment and enhancing the quality of life of the public, HKADC is also committed to facilitating
community-wide participation in the arts and arts education, encouraging arts criticism, raising the standard of arts administration and strengthening the work on policy research.

Major development strategies:

Supporting promising artists and arts groups in the pursuit of excellence

Promoting arts administration to improve the management of arts groups

Focusing on the arts environment and proposing policy recommendations

Enhancing public participation and exploring arts space

Fostering strategic partnerships and bringing arts resources together

HKADC has taken part in the International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia since 2001, with an aim to enhance exchange and communication between Hong Kong and other countries in the world. About 532,000 people have visited the past eight
exhibitions.
To find out more about HKADC, please visit www.hkadc.org.hk.

鳴謝

主辦機構

策展人

顧問策展人

與

協力

香港藝術發展局項目團隊

行政總裁 周蕙心 策劃及文化交流總監 麥蓓蒂 文化交流經理 林鴻怡 文化交流高級主任 劉雪敏

香港藝術發展局工作小組 (2016年)

主席

陳錦成

成員

鄭禕 梁崇任
羅揚傑
Magnus Renfrew 鮑藹倫
黃志恆

技術支援

Dino Tech

威尼斯支援

PDG Arte Communications

設計

Hato

Introduction

Samson Young (Hong Kong, born 1979) is a multidisciplinary artist with a background in classical music and composition. His works range from drawings, videos and mixed media installations, to multimedia walks and performances. For the 57th Venice
Biennale, Young has created a new body of work that attempts to reframe the popularization of ‘charity singles’ – purpose-made recordings for charitable causes, featuring a super-group of artists – as a historic ‘event’ and a culturally transformative
moment. Charity singles were most widespread in the 1980s, and coincided with the rise of neoliberalism and the global popular music industry. In 2014, Bob Geldof and a new group of artists attempted a remake of the iconic Do They Know It’s Christmas to support West African nations in their fight against Ebola. A perceived ‘out-of-timeness’ of the contemporary remake left a mark on Young’s consciousness, setting him on a course of research that informed this exhibition.

Through a deliberate repurposing and creative misreading of such iconic titles as We Are the World and Do They Know It's Christmas, the artist generates a series of objects, works on paper, and multi-room sound and video installations
that together constitute a unique audio-visual experience. The exhibition is conceived of as an album unfolding in space to be experienced in person. In here, the logic of conventional charity songs are blurred or left behind, the coded conventions
are upturned or abandoned. The artist is not presenting us with merely a critique of cultural artefacts. Rather, he is simultaneously exploring the troubling ideologies as well as the genuine affective qualities that these songs and their aspirations
embodied, thus bringing together many political vantage points in a cross-cultural context.

楊嘉輝藉着為《We Are The World》及《Do They Know It’s Christmas?》等經典曲目故意重賦新用和作出創意誤讀，創作出一系列物件、紙本作品和聲音空間裝置，合而構成一個獨特的視聽經驗。展覽構思成一個在空間中開展的音樂專輯，讓人親身體驗。在此，傳統賑災歌曲的邏輯變得模糊或被捨去，經編排的慣例被翻轉或揚棄。楊嘉輝藉着為經典慈善單曲作出一系列重新挪用和「故意誤讀」，並非純粹為向我們呈現他對文化產物的批判；反而，他在同一時間，探索這些歌曲及其抱負所體現那些令人困惱的意識形態和真實的情感特質，由此，他在一個跨文化背景下，將眾多政治觀點匯集起來。

展品

1

Palazzo Gundane (homage to the myth-maker who fell to earth)

絲網印刷及氈尖筆黑膠唱片、3D印製尼龍、玻璃箱、現成物、移動布簾裝置、霓虹燈、錄像、動畫及10聲道聲音裝置

2

We Are the World, as performed by the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions Choir

A while ago I came across a story about a group of unemployed musicians from Cape Town who called themselves the Plaster Cast. They had released a charity single in response to Band Aid’s iconic ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’. Titled ‘Yes We Do’, Plaster Cast’s single was produced by singer-songwriter Boomtown Gundane. Proceeds from its sale were ‘donated to British schools to fund instruction in discipline, literacy, and contraception’. I sought to get in touch with this Boomtown Gundane, only to find out later that he does not exist: the story was a piece of fake news, originally published by the Onion-esque, now-defunct, satirical news website Hayibo, and had subsequently been re-posted as fact on several websites and blogs. In Palazzo Gundane (homage to the myth-maker who fell to earth) I give shape and pay tribute to the fictional musician, and imagine the world he inhabits.

Installation view, Palazzo Gundane (homage to the myth‑maker who fell to earth) 展覽現場

We Are the World, as performed by the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions Choir

2017

Excerpted from the wikipedia.com entry on HKFTU, accessed 6 March 2017:
‘The Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions (HKFTU) is a pro-labour and pro-establishment Beijing group in 1948 in Hong Kong. It is the largest labour group in Hong Kong with over 390,000 members in 189 affiliates and 62 associated trade unions. It currently commands five seats in the Legislative Council of Hong Kong and 29 District Councillors.

Politics aside, the HKFTU also provides social and continuing education services. I owe my electronics skills to courses offered by the organisation. I am very happy, and very grateful, that HKFTU’s Kwan Sing Chorus is taking the plunge with me in realising this work.

Venue support by the Department of Fine Arts and the Department of Music, University of Hong Kong

We Are the World, as performed by the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions Choir

Installation view, We Are the World, as performed by the Hong Kong Federation of Trade Unions Choir 展覽現場

Risers

2017

The neon text is a literal translation of a quote by Mao, who, in a meeting in 1957 with Chinese student trainees in Moscow, said: ‘The world is yours, as well as ours, but in the last analysis, it is yours. You young people, full of vigor and vitality, are in the bloom of life, like the sun at eight or nine in the morning. Our hope is placed on you. The world belongs to you. China’s future belongs to you’ (translation taken from marxists.org, accessed 6 March 2017).

Risers

2017年

Installation view, Risers 展覽現場

Lullaby (World Music)

2017

Video, stainless steel, soundtrack. Photo: Simon Vogel, Cologne

In 1991, a super-group of Hong Kong singers and celebrities produced a cover version of Simon & Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ to raise funds in response to the Eastern China flood. I performed a version of the song in which the lyrics were replaced by random numbers in Cantonese.

到訪威尼斯

開放時間

地點

Campo della Tana, Castello 2126-30122, Venice, Italy (Arsenale的主入口對面)

Vaporetto水上巴士站：Arsenale 或 Giardini 1、2、4.1、4.2、5.1或5.2號線

Blog

As part of its commitment to nurture local talent interested in working in the visual art field, M+ and the Hong Kong Arts Development Council have launched an internship programme for the 57th International Art Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia,
offering interns the chance to gain unique insight into the workings of the world’s oldest and most renowned international art exhibition. The programme will begin in May, and will be arranged in two divisions, inviting two technical and ten exhibition
interns to join the M+ team.

Venice Biennale

The Venice Biennale, founded in 1895, has been one of the most important cultural institutions in the world. Covering a wide range of disciplines, including art, architecture, cinema, dance, music and theatre, it aims to promote new artistic trends
in contemporary arts. The documentation of its main activities is contained in its own Contemporary Arts Archive, which is a key point of reference for the study of contemporary arts.

The 57th Venice Biennale is the third collaboration between M+ and ADC, following the acclaimed reviews for Lee Kit - You (you). in 2013 and Tsang Kin-wah: The Infinite Nothing in 2015, on this representation of Hong Kong contemporary
art at one of the most important international platforms.

We Are One?Screenings & Conversations

To accompany Hong Kong’s collateral event at the Venice Biennale 2017, Samson Young: Songs for Disaster Relief, M+ and the Hong Kong Arts Centre are co-presenting a programme of film screenings and conversations on the theme of charity efforts. Through a selection of local and international narrative film, documentary and music video, ‘We Are One?’ explores some of the central issues raised in the exhibition, providing both a wider context for Young’s newly commissioned work for Venice.

This BBC documentary was made in 2004, on the 20th anniversary of the recording of ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’, a charity single in aid of the famine then raging in Ethiopia. The event was hosted by Midge Ure, who, along with Bob Geldof, wrote and produced the single that went on to sell almost 12 million copies worldwide and generated millions of dollars. Featuring some of the biggest names in Britpop at the time—Sting, Bono, Phil Collins, George Michael, and Boy George—Band Aid was the first celebrity charity project that sparked legions of imitators. Its success provoked an inevitable backlash, with some accusing it of patronising Euro-centrism—the ‘we’ of the West who live in a world of plenty versus the ‘they’ in Africa who live in a land where ‘no rain or rivers flow’. More seriously, many questioned whether such one-off acts of charity did more harm than good. Despite such criticism, one cannot help but be touched by the enthusiasm and optimism of these thirty or so, commonly perceived as vain, self-centred and damn attractive people, who, on a certain November day in 1984, looked out into the world and believed that they could change things for the better.

About the speakers

RubberBand

Independent Canto-pop band

RubberBand is a Canto-pop band formed in 2004 that comprises four members: No. 6 (lead vocal), Clem (guitar), Wai (bass), and Lai Maan (drums). They have released seven albums, and their popular singles such as ‘Simple Love Song’, ‘Easy’ and ‘Eyes Open’ have been the recipients of Four Stations Joint Music Awards. In 2012, their fifth album Easy won the Top Song Award and Top Album Award at the Ultimate Song Chart Awards Presentation. They have won numerous prizes, including Ultimate Song Chart Awards, Jade Solid Gold Best 10 Awards, and Hit Awards over the years, and have recently become independent in order to establish their own record label, ‘R Flat’.

Wong Chi Chung

Assistant Director, General Education Unit at The University of Hong Kong

Wong is a veteran radio DJ, music critic, and curator. Focusing on international music and local indie music culture, he plays an active role in promoting international and local art and culture through radio and TV programmes, and through curating various cross-cultural projects, including David Bowie’s Mandarin song (1997), ‘Dream Come True 80 Days Around the World’ (2000), ‘PoPo Song’ (2004), the Gen-S Concert for Shanghai Expo (2010), and Hong Kong Week in Taipei (2012). Wong currently hosts the radio show ‘Chi Chung’s Class’ on CR2 FM 90.3.

Adverse Weather Arrangement

Programme will be cancelled if a black rainstorm warning or a typhoon signal no. 8 or above is still in force 3 hours before the event starts.*The organiser reserves the right to change the programme and artists. All changes will be announced on the website.

Unlike in the West, where charity is often about ‘us’ and ‘them’, charity Hong Kong-style almost always looks inwards, to ‘ourselves’ or to our ‘brethren’ in China. In 1991, when floods devastated large parts of eastern China, virtually all the biggest stars of the Hong Kong film industry got together to make The Banquet in order to raise money for victims. Based on a 1959 charity film that raised funds for the South China Film Industry Workers Union, The Banquet attempts to extol the virtues of filial love over money, but in the end the lead characters—a materialistic couple played by Eric Tsang and Do Do Cheng—manage to get both. Despite the fact that the film was made in great haste and with everyone working for free in lieu of their usual hefty pay cheques, the end result—shamelessly sentimental, broadly humorous and relying on star power to hold together its outlandish plot—was not much different from every other Hong Kong commercial films of the 1980s. Also shown in this programme is the MV for ‘Tomorrow Will Be Better’, a song featuring sixty top singers that was meant to commemorate the liberation of Taiwan from Japanese rule, but its upbeat tune and hopeful lyrics have made it a staple for numerous charity events.

About the speakers

Jass Leung Wai Sze

Independent performing arts critic and writer

Leung has been a performing arts critic, researcher, and writer since 1998. She received a PhD in Chinese Language and Literature from Hong Kong Baptist University with her thesis titled ‘New Novel: Cultural imaginaries of Late Qing’, focusing on the relationship between literature and politics. Leung has produced over 400 works that have been published in newspapers, magazines, journals and conference materials, ranging from theatre criticism to cultural criticism, and concerning Hong Kong theatre productions, visual art exhibitions, and new media projects. In 2015, Leung received Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office in New York-Asian Cultural Council Fellowship Grants and conducted extensive research on alternative performing art spaces in New York. Her recent publications include Redness and Drama: A Preliminary Study of the School Festival (co-author, 2011), A Study of Post-1997 Hong Kong Canto-pop Lyrics (co-author, 2011), and Words Field: Post-1997 Hong Kong Popular Music Lyrics Discourse (2016).

Poon Yuen Leung Calvin

Lyricist, screenwriter and filmmaker

Calvin Poon is a Hong Kong-based lyricist, screenwriter and filmmaker, as well as football commentator. His talents across film, television, radio and publishing have brought him much success, and he is a renowned lyricist in the world of contemporary music. His Canto-pop songs such as ‘Who is the Favourite’, ‘Love Trap’, ‘Vulnerable Lady’, and ‘Seeing Moon’ have been top hits and won numerous awards across Asia. Poon was the screenwriter for Po-Chih Leong’s movies Banana Cop (1984) and Welcome (1985). In 1986, he was invited by D & B Films Co. Ltd to direct his first movie, Kiss Me Goodbye. He has also written playscripts, including for Remains of a Woman (1993), Downtown Torpedoes (1997), and Hot War (1998), establishing his impressive screenwriting style.

Adverse Weather Arrangement

Programme will be cancelled if a black rainstorm warning or a typhoon signal no. 8 or above is still in force 3 hours before the event starts.*The organiser reserves the right to change the programme and artists. All changes will be announced on the website.

Documentary maker Hubert Sauper piloted his own small plane from France to South Sudan on the eve of the latter’s declaration of independence from Sudan in 2011 to record the people and stories behind the birth of a nation. We Come As Friends shows that, despite the aspirations of its people for freedom and autonomy—some 98.8 per cent of the people voted in favour of independence—the country remained, as the director says in his voice-over, ‘enslaved, dispossessed and colonised’. The new colonialism of the twenty-first century is a mixture of the usual suspects (like Christian missionaries) and new players, such as oil-hungry Chinese companies. It is easy to snicker at a missionary’s obsession with putting ‘proper’ clothes on naked African children or the businessman who speaks of helping South Sudan and making a profit in the same sentence, but, as the film progresses, it becomes clear that the situation in that country is no laughing matter. Soon after independence, civil war broke out in South Sudan over oil and land which goes on to this day. Sauper’s film closes with images of a brutal battle juxtaposed with shots of Western tourists lounging at a resort swimming pool: a sadly apt metaphor that holds true not just for South Sudan, but for much of the developing world.

About the speakers

Keith B. Richburg

Director, Journalism and Media Studies Centre at The University of Hong Kong

Richburg is a journalist and former China correspondent who spent more than thirty years overseas for The Washington Post, serving as bureau chief in Paris, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Nairobi, and Manila. He covered the invasion in Iraq, the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the US military intervention in Somalia, the genocide in Rwanda, and the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China. After retiring from the Post in 2013, he became a fellow at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University and a lecturer of international reporting at Princeton University. Richburg has a BA from the University of Michigan and an MA in international relations from the London School of Economics. He has won several awards for his foreign coverage, and was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his reports from Somalia. Richburg is the author of Out of America: A Black Man Confronts Africa (1997).

Simon Shen Xu-hui

Director of Global Studies Programme and Associate Professor, Faculty of Social Science at the Chinese University of Hong Kong

Simon Shen is a scholar of international relations and Lead Writer (Global) at the Hong Kong Economic Journal. He received an MA in Political Science from Yale University and a PhD in Politics and International Relations from the University of Oxford, and has published more than seventy academic articles and publications, including over a dozen articles in social science journals such as China Quarterly, China Review, Journal of Contemporary China, Pacific Affairs, Pacific Review, and Asian Survey, among others. His research interests include Chinese nationalism and Chinese foreign policy, regional security in the Asia-Pacific region, and port diplomacy and the external relations of Hong Kong. In 2010, he was the visiting fellow representing Hong Kong at the leading US think tank, the Brookings Institution. His scholarship on contemporary anti-Western Chinese nationalism and its online format has gained worldwide attention and made him one of the most interviewed Hong Kong scholars by overseas media.

Adverse Weather Arrangement

Programme will be cancelled if a black rainstorm warning or a typhoon signal no. 8 or above is still in force 3 hours before the event starts.*The organiser reserves the right to change the programme and artists. All changes will be announced on the website.

Hong Kong Talk Series

This series of talks takes Samson Young’s artistic practice and his diverse influences as a starting point to expand public understanding about key concepts in contemporary art, as well as provide greater context for Young’s newly commissioned work for Venice.

Adverse Weather Arrangement

Programme will be cancelled if a black rainstorm warning or a typhoon signal no. 8 or above is still in force 3 hours before the event starts.*The organiser reserves the right to change the programme and artists. All changes will be announced on the website.

About the speakers

Guo Jau-lan

Based in Taipei, independent curator and art writer Guo Jau-lan works as adjunct associate professor for the MFA Programme in New Media Art and Graduate Institute of Trans-disciplinary Arts at the Taipei National University of Arts. She was a member of the selection panel for the Taiwan Pavilion at the 57th Venice Biennale. Her research interest and curatorial practice focus on the dynamic relationship between art and social reality. She has curated a number of exhibitions including the sound art exhibition Polyphonic Mosaic at the National Art Museum; Amnesia and Malevich’s Pharmacy, a reflection on the collection of the Taiwan Fine Arts Museum (TFAM, 2016); and Taiwanese Contemporary Art (TCA Project) (ISCP, New York, 2011) on nationalism and the international presentation of contemporary art. Her published work includes a translation of Boris Groys’s Art Power (MIT, 2008) and the sound art feature “Within Sound and Above Curatorship: Axes and Position of Sound Art and Its Curating” in ARTCO Magazine (September, 2014).

Samson Young

As an artist and composer based in Hong Kong, Young’s diverse practice draws from the avant-garde compositional traditions of aleatoric music, musique concrète, and graphic notation. Behind each project is an extensive process of research, involving a mapping of the process through a series of ‘sound sketches’ and audio recordings. His drawing, radio broadcast, performance and composition touch upon the recurring topics of conflict, war, and political frontiers. His recent solo projects include Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan (2015); Para Site, Hong Kong (2016); Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany (2016) and Manchester International Festival, United Kingdom (2017).

Adverse Weather Arrangement

Programme will be cancelled if a black rainstorm warning or a typhoon signal no. 8 or above is still in force 3 hours before the event starts.*The organiser reserves the right to change the programme and artists. All changes will be announced on the website.

About the speakers

Anthony Leung Po-shan

Belonging to the last generation of university of students under the colonial rule, Leung studied Fine Arts at The Chinese University of Hong Kong but witnessed the Handover as a reporter. Weaving through art and politics. She was a member of Para/Site Art Space and In-Media (Hong Kong). She is a PhD in Cultural Studies at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and the founding member of Hong Kong Culture Monitor. Her research interests include, among others, artistic labour, city space and cultural politics. Her essays and commentaries have been published in the Hong Kong Economic Journal, InMedia (Hong Kong), City Magazine, Leap, etc. Publications edited by her include Modern Art in a Colony: Narrated by Hon Chi-fan at the Millennium, Odd One In: Hong Kong Diary (by Pak Sheung-cheun), QK – Specimen Collection of Chan Yuk-keung, The Red Twenty-years of Ricky Yeung Sau-churk, etc.

Ying Kwok, Guest Curator, M+

Since 2013, Kwok became an independent curator working internationally. She co-curated Harmonious Society, as part of Asia Triennial Manchester 2014, From longing to belonging with Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art in Poland in 2014 and 2016; and recently No cause for alarm at La MaMa Galleria in New York 2016. In 2015, Kwok was awarded the Asia Cultural Council Fellowship to carry out a five-month- long research on participatory and engagement projects in the US. To encourage critical thinking and initiating effective discussions in Hong Kong, Kwok founded the Art Appraisal Club with a group of local art professionals in 2014. They first launch their biannual and bilingual journal Art Review Hong Kong in 2016. Apart from that, the group also provides regular exhibition reviews which are published in magazines and various cultural networks.

《明天會更好》（1985）是華語流行樂壇史上一大成功慈善單曲，由60位華語歌手一同灌錄，仿傚同年美國歌手為援助非洲饑民合唱的《We Are the World》；1991年華東水災，香港演藝界總動員賑災，上百位明星演出「忘我大電影」《豪門夜宴》，作為當年「演藝界總動員忘我大匯演」的延伸。電影原版拍攝於1959年，是一齣悲劇，現代版則安排大團圓結局，旨在為觀眾帶來希望──曾小智（曾志偉飾）為了討好極重孝道的科威特王子，不惜哄騙其父合謀一場豪門鬧劇，吵鬧過後，最終賺回親情。「誰能不顧自己的家園，拋開記憶中的童年？」八、九十年代港台兩地的家國情懷可堪回首。